


number 252

by orphan_account



Series: live audition [1]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Gen, Mental Breakdown, Pre-Game Personalities (New Dangan Ronpa V3), Smoking, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, i wrote this all in like a day bc i wanted to get it out for rantaros bday lmao, mostly based off of a hc that tsumugi was a part of season 52 along with rantaro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 04:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20886095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "My name is Rantaro Amami."An audition tape submitted by the star of Danganronpa 52 and events in his life before V3.





	number 252

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday avocado man i love you

_ “Number 252. My name is Rantaro Amami.” _

A staff member rouses you from your sleep that you mistook for a peaceful death a few hours ago. You're in a hospital bed, and you feel like throwing up until every single one of your organs exits your body and leaves your body as an empty husk. 

The staff member sent to check up on you tells you that, “Congratulations! Because you volunteered yourself as a sacrifice during the final trial for hope to prevail, you are a returning character for the next season of Danganronpa!”

None of the words they just said make any sense put together like that. You ask them if you're hallucinating, but they assure you that it's all real. Very, unfortunately, painfully real. 

“Oh, you don't know, do you? My apologies. I should have explained everything that just happened before jumping to the chase like that!” 

And they do. They explain everything. They explain the last trial and what a fucking mess it was. They explain that you sacrificed yourself, but you didn't really die, just put into a comatose state that gave you the impression that you died. They tell you that you're a Survivor, with an extra emphasis that you don't understand, and they tell you you're going to have to do all that over again at some other point. 

You ask them why. They tell you because that's what it means to be a Survivor. And then they realize they forgot to explain Danganronpa, which was easily the biggest piece of the puzzle that they could have possibly left out. 

They explain all of Danganronpa to you. They tell you that you might be Rantaro Amami, but the Rantaro that you were during the killing game isn't the same one from before you entered. They tell you that you _ willingly _ signed up for this show, that you _ willingly _ let your memories get erased so you could participate in a killing game for an audience that is the size of the whole fucking world. They tell you that you have to come back, and any attempts to get yourself out of it will get you put under constant surveillance. And also, you're under an NDA now. You get to watch your season over again before you leave. Or rather, you have to. 

You ask why they're doing this. They tell you that it's their job. They used to be a contestant too, a long time before you ever signed up. 

You ask why they signed up. And they give you a simple, yet absolutely horrific answer: “Everybody wants to be a part of the show.”

You feel a hole in your chest where your heart once was and a weight on your shoulders that you can only describe as extreme existential dread. You lock yourself in the bathroom for half an hour after Team Danganronpa discharges you. 

* * *

_ “Do I really have to do this whole audition again? You already know who I am. I was on your awful show before.” _

Tsumugi tells you that she's a part of Team Danganronpa, and you feel every part of your world crumble. You don't understand it. You don't get it at _ all_, why would she want to work alongside the people responsible for the trauma your whole group suffered because you all participated in the killing game?

You open your mouth to speak, then close it again. The pure amount of shock that hit you has demolished your ability to form a comprehensible sentence. Instead all you muster is a look of sadness, and it makes Tsumugi frown in response. 

“Hey, don't worry about me, Rantaro. I'm just an intern,” she reassures you. She grabs the sides of your arms and starts rubbing them, as if that's somehow going to relieve the emotional pain you feel knowing she's harming herself by getting a job here. “You'll still see me when we get out of here, I promise. I'll check up on you.”

Her hands move from the sides of your arms to your own hands, holding them in hers. “I'll be okay. You can trust me. I know how to take care of myself.”

You stare back at her for a few seconds. You hate to insinuate something about one of your closest friends, if not one of your _ only _friends, but you don't know if she can live up to what she's telling you. You saw what she was like in the killing game, she lost almost everyone she was close to and was paranoid to extents that were dangerous and even life-threatening. You don't want to think of what would have happened to her if she hadn't let everyone else help her as time went on.

Tsumugi is trying to move on from who she was made to be. It’s very clear in the way she looks at you, genuinely calm for once and how she tells you not to worry about her. You're proud of her for that. You wish you had the courage and energy to do the same. And you'd like to believe that she can set herself straight so easily, that she doesn't need anyone else’s help to move on from whoever the Tsumugi Shirogane from the killing game was. But old habits die hard, and implanted ones die harder.

You make a mental note to start checking up on her for every time she checks up on you. 

“Yeah. Of course. I'm glad I still have you, Tsumugi.”

She smiles. “Likewise.”

Tsumugi walks away from you, and you wonder if it would really hurt Team Danganronpa to hire some therapists for those who survived. 

* * *

_ “I'm not sure what you want me to say here. I don't really have anything that I want when I go on again.” _

“...What is this thing.”

Tsumugi frowns at you, but the hunk of metal she's brought with her doesn't seem phased by your remark. It just stares at you. You absolutely hate how unemotional it looks. It's fucking creepy. 

“He's not a thing. This is K1-B0, or Kiibo for short.” Tsumugi pats Kiibo’s metal shoulders a little, looking back at him like he's her own child. “He's going to be one of the the next contestants for Season 53. We've already finished up planning what he's going to do next season.”

You look him up and down, and you notice that his eyes have cameras in them. You're only creeped out further by that, and you decide very quickly that you do not like this robot at all. That is, until it opens its mouth to speak to you

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Rantaro. Tsumugi has told me many good things about you while I have been worked on and perfected.” Kiibo smiles a bit. The expression almost passes as human. Almost.

“Oh,” you respond. Surprise isn't the word you'd use to describe your reaction. Of course Tsumugi would talk about you, you're the only person she has outside of her job. “What… What does she say?” You ask him this as if Tsumugi isn't already in the room and could tell you herself. But she probably wouldn't, she doesn't like to acknowledge that she thinks about other people when they're not with her in the moment. 

“She says you're very kind and determined, and she's said a lot about how courageous and brave you were during your last season,” he responds. There's only some hint of excitement in his voice, it's the same excitement you can hear from Tsumugi when she talks about her interests or when she tells you about the different cosplays she's planned and the outfits she's designing (even if those are just for the people coming in for the next season). It's the excitement that you really need to listen for or else it won't stick out. 

You guess that goes for the both of them. When Tsumugi comes back from Danganronpa HQ, she looks like a regular school girl with no outstanding traits. When Kiibo covers up his robotic traits with the uniform Tsumugi tailored for him, he looks like a regular school boy named Tetsuya Iidabashi, following in the footsteps of his father to become an expert in robotics. 

Tsumugi flushes and looks the other way. Kiibo takes the hint and moves on from what she's said about you.

“I'm looking forward to being with you in the next season. Even if I won’t remember you when it happens, I’m sure we’ll get along just fine,” he continues, and he gives you that almost-human smile again. Somehow, he seems more passable for a regular boy in just the span of a few minutes.

“Likewise,” is your only response before you take your leave from the headquarters for the day.

Neither of them stick out to anyone. You're the only one who can't keep your eyes off of them. You're the only one who wonders if they're doing alright when you aren't with them.

* * *

_ “You can keep your old backstory for me. I don't have any other ideas for what you could possibly make me into. And I know you aren't going to ruin me so easily, because I’m a fan-favorite, as they put it.” _

“You, uh, don't look the same way you do on TV.”

You don't know how this small kid found you in an almost-empty alleyway only frequented by other stoners like you and delinquents with no home to return to. Maybe this is the way home for him. You feel sorry for whatever excuse of a living establishment he has going on if that’s the case.

You take a hit from your joint. “That's the point.”

You remember very distinctly looking at yourself in the mirror after you got out of Danganronpa HQ's "hospital". You didn't recognize the person staring back at you. A few hours later, after getting home with sterilized piercings, hair bleach and a new pair of scissors, you looked at the mirror again and felt at least a little bit better about who was staring back at you.

You still didn't recognize him. But at least he looked more like you than the reflection at the hospital did.

The boy's gaze shifts awkwardly from you to the side. You hear him mutter an apology under his breath. “So, you're really Rantaro Amami? The Ultimate Adventurer?”

“Unfortunately.” You blow out some smoke, careful to avoid getting it in the kid’s face. It shouldn't be hard for him to avoid having a faceful of smoke blown at him, because you're sitting down on the dirty ground and he's standing up, looking down at you like you’re unemployed and begging for cash on the street. You aren't either of those things. You're just traumatized. “I don't really do autographs, but you're one of the few fans I've met that isn't a total freak. I'll make an exception for you.”

He slings the Monomi bag off his back and takes out a small poster, a promotional image of you for Danganronpa Season 52 that you don't remember taking. He hands you a marker, and you pop off the cap with your teeth. “What's your name, kid?”

“This isn't for me. I'm not really into Danganronpa as much as everyone else is,” he pauses, as if he expects some kind of reaction of disgust or mild disapproval from you. All you do is think to yourself, _ Oh, thank god. _ “It's for my friend. His name is Shuichi Saihara.”

You sign the photo in that perfected way you were taught to sign if you wanted to have some form of free will while living amongst actual people, making it out to Shuichi Saihara. You click the cap back on, with your teeth again, and hand the photo back to the small boy as delicately as possible. 

“Thank you.” He looks at you as if he's grateful for this once-in-a-lifetime encounter, and with a hidden sadness that he might never see you like this again. He should be glad. No one wants to see their favorite celebrity high on the sidewalk.

“Don't mention it. I don't really, uh, do these favors for strangers. Only if I’m required to, like at a con.”

“Required?”

Ah. You probably shouldn't have said it like that. “Yeah. Required. I’m really big with fans, so the team has to drag me to conventions for signings.”

His expression grows more confused as you go on. “So, you don't like doing these things?”

“Of course not. You watched my season, didn't you? Do you think I'd enjoy teenagers thirsting after me like I’m a prop for them to print onto body pillows and fuck? Especially after all of _ that? _”

He looks away again, mutters another apology. You tell him that it's fine. It's not like he would've known, anyways. He doesn't know what it's like to be on Danganronpa. A small part of you hopes he never will.

“My friend really wants to be on Danganronpa,” he mentions. He looks down at the autographed promo image, and you know he's talking about this Shuichi kid. “He's told me about how he wants to be a blackened detective, because that's never happened before. He's gone through a lot of ideas for the execution of an Ultimate Detective. I don't know if I should support him or be concerned.”

“I mean, I’d be pretty fucking concerned if my friend was planning to die on live television.”

“Well, yeah. I am concerned about that. But I know there's… more to it. I’m pretty sure there is, at least.” He tucks away the picture into his bag. “I don't think he's doing it out of an obsession for murder. I think he just wants people to like him.”

Familiar words ring in your mind from the day you got discharged from Danganronpa HQ. _ Everybody wants to be a part of the show. _

You get what that staff worker meant now.

“I guess I can understand it,” he continues. “I’d want people to like me, too, if I got on. Even if it’s just the audience. I get picked on a bit. I can't really do anything about it, all I have is my sister and my friends.”

Everybody wants to be a part of the show. _ You _ wanted to be a part of the show, and then it turned out the show was a scam made to manipulate teens into murdering one another that takes advantage of their already deteriorating mental states. A part of you feels guilty for chastising the fans so vehemently now. Some of them are just teens that don't have any other way out of their situations. You empathize with them. But the others, the ones that encourage the teens to sign away their life for the one shot at making it big on television, you despise them. You clench your fist on impulse just thinking about how they don't care about what happens to these kids.

You feel an even bigger hatred for Danganronpa than you did before.

“I should probably get going… Goodbye. I probably won't see you again, so, uh, good luck on the next season.” He turns away and begins walking the way he was going before he saw you sitting down, until you stop him.

“Hey. You never answered my earlier question.” That gets him to stop. He turns back to you, giving you his full, undivided attention. “What's your name?”

He's hesitant. You can't tell if it's because someone famous asked for his name, or if someone asked for it in general. “Kokichi Ouma.” he answers, a newfound confidence shining in him that you hadn't seen before. 

You give Kokichi a smile, one that feels more genuine than all the smiles you've faked for publicity, and take another hit. “Maybe I'll see you again some day, Kokichi. Stay safe on the walk home.”

He nods, returning your smile, and turns back around. You feel like a missing part of your compassion has finally been restored.

* * *

_ “I think that's it. I can't get out of this, so I guess there's only one thing that I want to request before we wrap this up.” _

There's a violent knock at your door. You didn't expect visitors, you never _ get _ visitors, because it's prohibited by Team Danganronpa for fans to stop by the stars’ houses, unless they got permission from the team itself. Your address is completely secured anyways, any and all fan mail that you get is redirected to a P.O. box at Danganronpa HQ that no one bothers to check. It's not like you really want reminders that most fans see you as some pretty boy that they want to lose their virginity to. So you don't ask about it.

You open the door as quickly as possible, because whoever it is that's visiting you is clearly urgent to see you. You wonder which gross fan went through the trouble of finding out your address, and what the hell it is that they want. It can't be something good. You know it never is, from the very little mail you bothered to look through you knew that if any of these people met you in real life, it'd be horrible. Your mind drifts, thinking about how much you loathe the fanbase for everything they make you into that isn't, and never will be, you. 

You open the door. It's Tsumugi. 

She looks like shit. 

“Hey, Tsumugi, you alright?” She doesn't answer, her gaze locked on the floor, or the wall, or any place that doesn't meet your eyes. She stands in place for a few seconds, her legs shaking underneath her and her breathing unsteady. Her clothes are a lot more of a mess than they usually are after work, her bow coming apart and a huge ink blot on her skirt. Her hair isn’t kept tidy in the way she insists it has to look. Her glasses are crooked. And when she finally looks up at you, you notice the bags under her eyes and the tears pooling in them. 

A few seconds later she completely breaks down, almost falling on her knees. You catch her in your arms before she hits the ground, and you hear her let out gross sobs and cry harder than you've ever heard her cry before. You take her into your apartment, locking the door as best you can while holding a whole other person in your arms and carrying her onto your couch like she's a drunk girl at a party unable to move. The immobility part stands true, at least.

She cries for a while, she cries loudly and grossly and it's all raw and ugly. She tries to calm herself enough to give you at least a single coherent sentence to explain what's wrong, but her emotions get the best of her and she breaks into hysterics again after every failed attempt. She latches onto you, pulling you into a hug that you haven't felt in far too long. Slowly, you hug her back, rubbing little circles into her back to calm her down. You shush her a bit, and whisper little somethings to her to get her to calm down. You hope it's working. It's been so long since anyone's ever held onto you like this. 

Tsumugi’s breathing slows down, and you know that's when she's finally calmed down enough to talk. She doesn't let go of you. You don't let go of her. The silence that surrounds the both of you is neither suffocating nor deafening, it’s a wave of relief after the end of a disaster

“I wish I could leave,” she whispers. She doesn't have to explain herself there, you know what she means. You bring her a little closer to you, and she hugs you a little tighter. “I just wanted to feel like I mattered. After all that, I didn't feel like I had a purpose with everyone I loved gone. And learning that the person I was during everything wasn't even _ me… _ that only made it worse. I didn't feel real. And I still don’t. I don't know if I ever will.”

You don't say anything to her, you just rub her back to show her you're listening, that you understand. She keeps going.

“They offered me a job because someone, _ somehow _ , noticed how awful it was on me. They told me I’d get to write the characters myself. I'd get to pick who got on. I could even be the _ mastermind _ if I wanted. They told me I’d have an influence over _ everything _. I could finally matter. I could finally make myself known and real.”

“That's why I took the job. I’m sorry.” Her voice is quiet at the end, like she's ashamed of herself for why she'd done what she did. 

“It’s okay. I don’t blame you. I never have, and I never will. I'll stay right here with you for as long as I can,” You wished you could promise her you’ll stay by her side forever. But you both know you can't. No matter how far you drive away from this city, away from this world, you can't escape the firm grip Danganronpa on you, on her, on the whole fucking world. It's hopeless. As much as you wish there were other ways to say it, that's the only way that can really describe your situation.

“Sometimes I think I’d be better off if I had died,” Tsumugi states. Her voice is blank, but you know behind it it's masking a mixture of anger and sadness towards everything that has happened. “There’s nothing for me in the outside world. There's only constant reminders of my trauma at Danganronpa HQ. I don't even have the luxury of people liking who I was on TV. I’m just the plain cosplayer girl you gave your life for.”

You don't tell her that being famous isn't a luxury, especially not for a show like Danganronpa. That isn't what she needs to hear right now. You know she'd rather take any form of fame, no matter how much of a burden it may be, over being forgotten and regarded as boring.

After that night, you wonder if you would have been better off if you had actually been sacrificed instead of brought back.

* * *

_ “I don’t want to live through this. Make sure I die. I don't care when. Or how. Just make sure I die. I don't want to do this whole song and dance of surviving again.” _

You're going to end this killing game.

This isn't anyone else’s job to do. You know you have to do this _ yourself, _you have to live up to being an Ultimate Survivor by surviving another killing game. You have to make sure no one ends up dead, you wouldn't be able to live with yourself if you couldn't protect everyone. 

Some small part of you wishes that you could let yourself trust someone with this information, someone like Kaede. Kaede tries so hard to keep everyone together, to tell everyone that no matter what happens, _ no one _is going to die. She's so easy to trust, but she's also such a big target. The mastermind would pull out every trick in their book to take the both of you out if it meant the killing game could continue. 

Maybe they're already planning something right now. 

So you investigate the library, where your Survivor’s Perk Monopad says the mastermind’s hidden room is. Several minutes of searching and searching for where the room could _ possibly _ be, constantly checking back at the tablet in your hands to make _ sure _ that you're in the right spot. Only a few seconds of thinking for where it might be hidden in this particular spot. Only a few seconds you spend pulling the bookcase open to reveal the hidden room. 

The flash of a camera catches you off guard. You rush over to it, and almost immediately after a shot put ball lands near your feet from above the vents. Odd. Maybe someone was setting a trap to catch the mastermind on their own. 

A swing at your skull gets you caught in that trap. 

A title is forgotten by those who never even remembered it. A wish to end the suffering of a star is granted. 


End file.
